Apocalypse Later (Kesler)

All the shadows of the dense canopy hid the secrets of the vast Amazon. And a good thing too, because this place really sucked. Even in the shade it felt like it was two hundred degrees, the air thick enough to chew up spit out, and complain because you were too full to breath anymore. Elaine continued to complain anyways. This magical party boat ride bore none of those words anymore. The magical companion she brought disappeared, the alcohol all vanished, and after running into a giant snake, the boat sank. So Elaine road a barrel over to the shore line before the piranhas showed up.

"Why did you attempt to get the boat unstuck by shooting the bow?"

"They put one of mine in the hospital, I put one of theirs in the morgue." Elaine muttered her words through the mud her face sank into. Her boots took on about twenty pounds of water while her shorts and her button up blue shirt combined for about ten pounds. Incidentally, her hat sized up to about ten gallons, but remained only ten inches in height.

"Are we chalking your delusions up to the sun, the wrecked boat, or the thing chewing on your back leg?" The little spirit dog set its gaze towards a leech sucking on the back of Elaine's knee, completely hidden away from the realm of anyone not within Elaine's brainrealm.

"Brainrealm isn't a real word." Elaine swatted the creature from the back of her leg and wiped the mud from her face.

"I never said anything about it." Following in the shadow of his ascending partner, Spirit Corgi plopped his oddly shaped butt on the ground.

"Someone said brainrealm. That's a stupid word."

"You're talking to the narrative again; we should just go look for Amethyst and Imena. They're somewhere out here."

Water poured from the barrel of both of her pistols as Elaine finished drying herself off. "I thought we only brought one with us?"

"I really wasn't paying attention until about three minutes ago. Find one, find two. Who cares? Can we go?" And Elaine and her spectral companion walked into the jungle to look for any number of people.

The dense foliage of the trees opened up into a well put together camp of sorts. Elaine tossed her bag in the tent and strolled past the man tending to his site without as much as a word going towards him. The zipper closed behind her and a number of clothes flung around the small enclosure.

Tree branches rustled along the perimeter of the camp. Hidden within the trees stalked a number of women armed with spears and bows, wearing light armor to give them freedom to move. Machinery ran along the shaft of their weapons; the heaviness of their weapons brushing leaves and weighing down their footsteps. The shadows still embraced them with comfort, but their steps would begin to announce themselves the closer they wandered.

Elaine emerged from the tent she broke into with a dry pair of shorts and her black poncho draped over a black bikini top. A seemingly unending deluge of water poured out from the shaking of her hat. The fire hissed at the response of each drip to its mouth. "It's not drying fast enough. Your fire is broken." Both of Elaine's pistols remained holstered at her side with bullets lining the waist. Once the hat reached an acceptable level of dampness, Elaine plopped it upon her head. "It's weird that tents just appear naturally in the wild. I guess you were lucky you found it."

Just as Elaine stood up, a blast shot the hat off her head. Lasers broke out from the treeline shooting from spears, pulsing with a light purple glow. Arrows rained down into the camp, exploding with concussive force. Both of Elaine's pistols sprung from her holster in time to parry a downward stroke from one of the Amazons coming from the trees. The black and brown armor she wore looked crafted with some synthetic material, but still holding the outside trappings of furs.

Seven Amazons in all came towards the camp, three stayed back to fire arrows while the other four engaged in close quarters. "Your friends are weird!" Elaine dug the bottom of her boot into the neck of her assailant, driving her to the ground. A savage swipe crossed towards Elaine's chest, catching nothing but the appearance of the cowgirl disappearing before her and arriving behind her. It only took a minor kick to push the Amazon away, so Elaine pushed for a forceful kick to push the woman into a tree. "And rude."

Elaine walked over the two disposed Amazons she put on the ground, making her way over towards the ruckus in the jungle. Once the commotion of battle wore down, nothing more than a scattering of charred flesh and burning synthetics. "Oh cool, so I kicked someone into a tree, so you went all Clint Eastwood and started killing people." The plasma lit up enough of the area to shed some light on the faces around the area. "Oh and they're women too. I won't tell Tumblr about this, but you went from 0 to killing people in like 6 seconds. Let's find the speed below that and cruise there for a while. Otherwise stuff gets a little too real."

"Speaking of getting too real, those Amazons are leaving. Well, the ones capable of doing that are." The little dog walked next to the smoldering body and took a seat.

"The little dog I talk to that only I can see says you aren't grounded in reality."

"I didn't say that. I was only thinking it about you." More smoke poured up from the bodies. "Oh, wow this guys worse than you."

"He says you aren't as good as me yet, but thinks you have promise." The trail still had some credence. The lights from Luke's plasma lit up the canopy as the Amazons retreated away. "Yeah, so I'm going to follow them to find out if they found my friends- well friend. Maybe. I'm looking for possibly two humans. This is a good idea right?"

"I don't care. At all."

"Little dog says he doesn't see anything wrong with our plan. So, let's go."

"By that logic if I tried to enlighten you, you would try to enlighten me. But, you don't have any enlightenment, therefore you would just take my enlightenment, leaving me with nothing while I bestow enlightenment upon you. Then, out of the enlightened mindset, you would try to enlighten me, creating an infinite loop of something into nothing. Wait, would that balance a Yin and Yang?" Elaine rubbed the side of her head with the barrel of her gun while looking back to her spirit guide.

"Did you know everything in a rainforest can and will kill you for no reason other than this place is terrible?"

"Little dog said this is life or death. You can only see him if you're enlightened-"

"Wrong."

"Pretty sure it comes from Kansas. Or, Mexico. Just don't drink the water and try not to get murdered by cartels." A quick spin of her pistol put her gun back in the holster hanging off her back. "Why am I looking for enlightenment in a jungle? This seems stupid. That's a dumb light over there. I'm going to turn it off." A pause hung in the air as Elaine walked off into the distance, never to be seen again.

Elaine walked into a clearing expanding for the better course of a mile, being seen again. The clearing broke down into a quarry dug out of a valley. A large building sat in the middle of the quarry, feeding off the river. A number of substructures lined the major building as it basked in a dark green glow mixing with the shadows along the valley. "Alright. Time to go from zero to gangsta. Remember motherfucker, enlightenment. Enlightenment. Enlightenment."

"Saying the word doesn't apply anything to it. You're not Hermeneutics."

"Enlightenment!" And Elaine began to descend into valley, pulling out both guns and disappearing into the shadows of the green light.